SRV to end at Orlando Wetlands Park

Spillway into wetland

After a month of flying over Florida (via Google Maps), we found the perfect spot to end our Suwannee River Voyage. The goal was to end as close to Orlando as possible in order to connect our fundraising for Water For People to members of AWWA who plan to attend their annual conference, ACE20.

The perfect spot turned out to be the Orlando Wetlands Park, a man-made wetland designed to provide advanced treatment for reclaimed water from the City of Orlando and other local cities. The Park is 1650 acres in size and located in Christmas, Florida. Ending in Christmas is just a bonus.

We will be paddling up the St. Johns River which is separated from the Orlando Wetlands Park by a 2 mile section of the Florida National Scenic Trail. The trail runs through the Seminole Ranch Wildlife Management Area which is managed in cooperation with the St. Johns River Water Management District. Gary will be right at home here since he used to work at the Muskegon County Wastewater Management System which uses a land treatment process encompassing 11,000 acres of aeration and settling basins, storage lagoons, and irrigated cropland.

Gary loves to paddle but hates to walk. Therefore we contacted the Orlando Wetlands Park and now have a phone number that we can call when we get close. With a little luck, we will get to paddle 684 miles and walk zero miles on our Suwannee River Voyage.